


Blood-Red Hands

by thekingslover



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekingslover/pseuds/thekingslover
Summary: The guy’s head smacks the ground and he’s unconscious. Joe hits him anyway. If he stops, if the guy wakes, he will try to hurt them again. Nicky, Andy, Nile… Joe’s compassion wars with his need to protect his family.Nicky himself is the only one who can pull Joe away.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 344





	Blood-Red Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my nickyjoe tumblr sideblog, monicashipsnickyjoe. Main blog is thekingslover.

Nicky knocks the gun out of the guy’s hand. It clatters across the floor, out of reach of any of them. Nicky’s slow though; he’s already taken a bullet to the shoulder and two to the arm. The guy recovers quicker, and punches Nicky in the face.

Joe feels the blow as surely as if he’d been the one to get hit. He sprints forward.

Nicky, wounded already, stumbles back.

The guy pulls back for another blow. 

Joe dives and tackles him to the ground.

The guy’s head smacks the ground and he’s unconscious. Joe hits him anyway, the same way he hit Nicky. If he stops, if the guy wakes, he will try to hurt them again. Nicky, Andy, Nile… Joe’s compassion wars with his need to protect his family.

Nicky himself is the only one who can pull Joe away.

Yet even when they have returned to their safe house, with Nicky and Nile fully healed and Andy suffering only a bruise or two, Joe cannot slow the fast pace of his heart. 

He breathes deeply, trying to relax his tense muscles, but the adrenaline won’t cool. He clenches his hands in fists but they still tremble. They are covered in blood that’s not his.

Nicky leads him to the table and Joe sits. Nicky makes him tea, but when Joe tries to lift the cup, it keeps clattering against the saucer. He tries to lift it higher but the hot liquid splashes over the sides.

In an instant, Nicky is there, guiding the cup back down.

“Joe.”

Joe swallows. He tries twice to find words before saying, “There’s blood on my hands.”

A muscle ticks in Nicky’s jaw. He stands and walks toward the counter. Before Joe can panic, he returns with a damp wash cloth and a dry towel. Kneeling beside Joe’s chair, he takes Joe’s hand in his, first one and then the other, and cleans each. He scrubs at the knuckles. He rubs gently at the soft webbing between the fingers. He’s kind but thorough. Then he dries them.

“There,” Nicky says, dropping the towels to the floor and his hands to Joe’s knees. “They are clean now.”

Joe flexes his fingers. He can breath a little easier without so much red.

“Nicky,” Joe starts, a question there, one he isn’t sure how to ask. This violence… Over the years, so much violence…

“We fight. We make… difficult choices,” Nicky says. “But they are always for cause.”

“I do not question our cause,” Joe tells him. “Or our means.” He glances down to Nicky’s hands, not wanting to see the earnest devotion in his eyes. He’ll crumble if he does. Yet knowing it’s there gives him the courage to turn inward, to look at himself and see.

When Joe hurt that man, he wasn’t doing it for the cause. It was his family he fought for, and sometimes, the extremes he would go to to protect them… 

He regrets nothing. He would do it again. But he fears…

He fears.

Nicky’s hands move, cupping Joe’s face. He brings Joe forward as he presses himself up.

“You are my sun,” Nicky says, and kisses him. It’s soft and short, a gift of comfort. Joe steals another, greedy for it.

“If anything happens to you, to Andy, or to Nile,” Joe says. It’s easier to speak now with Nicky so close. He looks up and can only see Nicky’s eyes watching him. They are two men alone, the rest of the world entirely vanished around them. “I would not recover.”

“Joe.”

“I would lose myself to vengeance,” Joe tells him. “I would forget kindness.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Joe shakes his head, catching his curls between their foreheads. “Without you, I…” He cannot finish the thought aloud, too terrible and dark to give voice to. Instead, he says, “Nicky.”

Nicky hears and kisses him again. And again. A slew of soft kisses. He drops his hands to take hold of Joe’s and then kisses the knuckles that were not so long ago coated in blood.

“You will never be without me,” Nicky says, without a hint of doubt. He’s kindness and he’s strength, and Joe wants - _needs_ \- both. He _needs_ Nicky.

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can,” Nicky says, defiant. “I am. Destiny connects us, my heart.“

He makes it sound so simple. Maybe it is. 

Joe exhales, and the last bit of anxiety falls away. He leans forward, pressing his forehead to Nicky’s. “I love you is not enough.”

“I know,” Nicky says. “Me, too.”


End file.
